I wanted to like this much more than I did, unfortunately. It's definitely a solid story but it takes a LONG time to get going, and despite its rebellious tone throughout and dark humour, I found myself skimming A LOT.

I can definitely understand the love for this one - anti-capitalism and classism and some suspicious attacks with clever commentary and an interesting insight into a practice I honestly knew nothing about.

This is a slow-paced book though, so would be best to go into it with that in mind.

Big thanks to NetGalley, Orion Publishing Group, and the author for the e-ARC. Available to purchase now!

Firstly, I cannot believe that this book is only 240 pages long, because it felt like it took me weeks to finish.

Gunk Baby is a strange book to explain, because it's so mind-numbingly boring - but I think that's on purpose?! It's almost impressive how much the author has made this feel like a book four times its length.

Our main character, Leen, has brought her family's traditional ear-cleaning business to the West, to a generic shopping mall in the generic suburb of a generic town (Par Mars). The only way I can describe this place to you is this: Did you play GTA: Vice City back in the day? Remember the mall? That. That's this place. I could almost hear the mall music playing as I read the book.

Leen lives with two housemates, all three of them driven by the mundanity of capitalism. They live to work, they work to live, the sun rises, the sun sets. They're all caught in this big capitalist wheel and they're all exhausted. Their lives are joyless. They get involved in this sort of odd anti-capitalist online forum in which they plot "revenge" on shop owners and managers in the mall - and carry out "punishments" on these people while not really actively engaging in conversation about any of it and continuing to spend their days working for "the man."

Honestly, it's one of the weirdest books I've ever read. It's like if you took Convenience Store Woman, threw it into a blender with Fight Club, stirred in my lack of motivation and topped it off with a hipster who drinks out of jam jars and wears his Grandfather's old trousers as a statement on fast fashion (but he's holding them up with a belt he bought from Shein and he got the jam jars on Amazon). A weird, weird, boring book but it's one of those ones that has wormed its way in and made me think about it for weeks after finishing it. I honestly could not tell you whether I loved it or hated it - I think it's incredibly clever and well written, and I would definitely read more by this author.

Gunk Baby is an inventive, compelling and provocative novel rich in social commentary and the innate beauty of several different cultures. Throughout a childhood spent moving between different countries, one thing was constant for Leen. The local shopping centre. Within those complexes, the familiar landscape of logos, the bright lights, the climate-controlled environment and the interactions between workers and customers never changed. It all looked shiny, new and tidy - on the surface. So, when it feels like the same day for far too long, Leen decides to open a healing studio - ear-cleaning, massage and cupping - for her, the Par Mars Topic Heights shopping complex is the perfect location to build a business.

A place where you can smell summer even if it happens to be winter. Here, Leen thinks she is making connections. Just like in the ancient Chinese art of ear-cleaning taught to her by her mother, she thinks what you can't see, you trust someone else to be able to. But what if you trust the wrong person? And what if that person is not looking to heal but to destroy? With a fierce intellect and masterful storytelling, Jamie Marina Lau brings to life a world that is devastatingly close to our own.

A world where consumerism drives us to buy things we don't need, where otherness can be used to manipulate, where a person's worth is measured by the role they play or the way they look and where protective services isn't about protecting others from violence but viciously punishing those who step outside the lines. This is my type of novel; abundant with razor-sharp critique and dissection of capitalism, modernity, materialism and hedonism and strewn with pin eye perceptions of the world that surrounds us, this is a sinister and disturbing consumerist horror story of exciting, confronting and unusual proportions. Highly recommended.

Gunk Baby is an interestingly written unique exploration of consumerism and capitalism. It doesn’t follow typical narrative structure, and is a bit slower in pace/happenings than I would typically like, but this weird novel will definitely be a fast favourite for the socially critical.

I think the writing is excellent, with great tone. Whilst for me personally the characters were all a little too ambiguous and unlikeable, it still made for somewhat gripping reading. The underlying meaning can feel a little far away, or hazy, as some of the language is complex and quite abstract, but regardless of your full level of understanding it still leaves you with something to chew on.

Definitely one for people who love delving into social criticism, and don’t mind things getting a bit odd. I think it’s a really special book which could easily become a classic. It's distinctive writing, and you certainly won't forget it!

Gunk Baby is exceptionally well-written, but it felt like there was something missing - I wanted to like this a lot more than I actually did.
I was initially really intrigued, and raced through the first half of the story without wanting to put the book down. However, at about the mid-way point of the book, if I hadn't been reading on my ereader (and known I only had two hours left) I may well have given up. I found the characters really unendearing - which is an acceptable narrative choice, but in this case left me feeling actively frustrated. This was especially noticeable when the narrator or characters are quoting from other sources - it successfully highlighted aspects of their personality, but made me want to hear from them even less.
I continued reading in the hopes that something would be resolved, or tied together - but the ending was inconclusive and disappointing for me.
As previously mentioned, the writing in Gunk Baby is brilliant - the dialogue feels very natural, and the tone flows well. It's possible that, for someone else, this book will be a new favourite - unfortunately, I was left feeling let down.

Gunk Baby is a book about consumerism, capitalism, and class, as an ear-cleaning shop is opened in a shopping centre being taken over by a minimalist chain. Leen is twenty-four and just opening an ear-cleaning and massage shop in a shopping centre in Par Mars, a suburban land of housing estates. At the same time she meets Jean Paul, a disaffected guy working in a pharmacy who is obsessed with an online forum, and finds herself drawn into a community of people fighting back against consumerism and the managers in the shopping centres who they see as controlling it.

The vibe of Gunk Baby is if Fight Club was focused on the IKEA/Project Mayhem stuff and was also about a Chinese woman using her mother's advice that Westerners love healing rituals. As with other books about disaffection and what is brewing underneath, not a huge amount happens for a lot of the book, other than Leen occasionally having clients, being involved with the anti-capitalist community, and getting closer to a guy who works in the chain minimalist shop that is taking over. However, it still has a lot of biting commentary running underneath, all cleverly brought together with the aesthetic of shopping centres, drugs, and whether to embrace or reject conformity.

You can almost hear strains of muzak and see the inside of a shopping centre at all times as you read this novel—that's how well the atmosphere is created, a kind of hazy slightly unreal world whether or not the characters are actually inside one. It has a lot to say about orientalism and capitalism, and comes together in a satisfying way that you foresee, but that feels like the point. Gunk Baby is the sort of book that'll be recommended if you like various 'cult classics', but it also feels fresh and clever.